Duncan Richter
Professor of Philosophy
Virginia Military Institute
Dr. Duncan Richter is a Professor of Philosophy at the Virginia Military Institute, where he has taught since 1995. He won VMI’s Thomas Jefferson Teaching Award in 1998, the Distinguished Teaching Award in 2007, and has been named three times to Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers. His students recognize that he sets high standards, and praise him for being engaging, witty, challenging, caring, profound, objective, patient, clear, and comprehensible. His courses are regularly full to overflowing, and the minor in philosophy that he pioneered is one of the most popular at VMI.
Dr. Richter’s goal is to produce students who know about the ideas that have shaped, and continue to shape, our culture; who are in the habit of thinking critically about ideas and arguments that are presented to them; and whose thinking has been improved by being exposed to new insights and, above all, by wrestling with a variety of challenging arguments. One of his students volunteered to help keep the peace in the former Yugoslavia after taking a course with Dr. Richter on military ethics. Another made a point of walking across the parade ground to tell him that the critical thinking skills he had developed in philosophy were helping him in a high-level chemistry course. Another now takes Epicurus’ manual of stoic ethics with him wherever he goes. Several others keep in touch with him, especially to discuss philosophy, years after they have graduated.
Dr. Richter is also actively engaged in scholarly work, mostly on ethics and the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. He is the author of Why Be Good?: A Historical Introduction to Ethics (Oxford University Press, 2008), a Historical Dictionary of Wittgenstein’s Philosophy (Scarecrow Press, 2004), Wittgenstein at his Word (Continuum, 2004), and Ethics After Anscombe: Post “Modern Moral Philosophy” (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000). Like his teaching, his most recent book has been praised for its clarity and humor, as well as for avoiding “dumbing down” difficult ideas. He has also published eleven articles in peer-reviewed journals such as Erkenntnis, Religious Studies, Philosophy, The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Philosophical Papers, and The Journal of Value Inquiry.
Dr. Richter received his undergraduate degree from Oxford University, England, his master’s from the University College of Swansea, Wales, and his doctorate from the University of Virginia. He lives in Lexington, Virginia with his wife Stephanie Wilkinson and their two children, Isabel, age 9, and Henry, age 7.
